Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [144]
CHAPTER 62
A PUBLIC ENEMY TO OURSELVES
ON APRIL 23, 1557, SIR THOMAS STAFFORD, AN ENGLISH PROTESTANT exile, landed on the Yorkshire coast at Scarborough with two French ships and a force of up to a hundred English and French rebels and seized Scarborough Castle.1 His aim was to depose Mary, an “unrightful and unworthy Queen” who had “forfeited the right by her marriage with a Spaniard.”2
Styling himself “protector of the realm,” he came, he said, to deliver his countrymen of the tyranny of strangers and warned of an influx of Spaniards who would enslave the people. He would “defeat the most devilish device of Mary,” who “most justly deserved to be deprived from the Crown, because she being naturally born half Spanish and half English, beareth not herself indifferently towards both nations, but showing herself a whole Spaniard, and no English Woman, in loving Spaniards, and hating Englishmen.” For the defense of the country, he promised that the crown would revert “to the true English blood of our own natural Country.”3
The government reacted quickly. Within five days, the earl of Westmoreland had retaken the castle, and on April 30 a proclamation was issued in London announcing Stafford’s capture. He was tried, condemned, and executed for treason at Tyburn a month later.
The rebellion provided the catalyst for the declaration of war with France. Writing to Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, from London on April 28, the Spanish commander, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, declared, “As for the breach of the truce, the French have spared us the trouble.”4 And in London, on June 7, 1557, the queen’s heralds formally proclaimed war with France:
Although we, the Queen, when we first came to the throne, understood that the Duke of Northumberland’s abominable treason had been abetted by Henry, the French King, and that since then his ministers had secretly favoured Wyatt’s rebellion … we attributed these doings to the French King’s ministers rather than to his own will, hoping thus patiently to induce him to adopt a truly friendly attitude towards us … the other day he sent Stafford with ships and supplies to seize our castle of Scarborough … for the above reasons, and because he has sent an army to invade Flanders which we are under obligation to defend, we have seen fit to proclaim to our subjects that they are to consider the King of France as a public enemy to ourselves and our nation, rather than to suffer him to continue to deceive us under colour of friendship.5
When the English herald conveyed England’s declaration of war to Henry II, he made clear who he believed was the real instigator of the conflict between England and France: “The Queen … did what she has done against me under compulsion, her husband having given her to understand that unless she declared herself he would depart that kingdom, and never return hither to see her … she was forced to do what she has done.” He declared that as the herald had come in the name of a woman it was unnecessary for him to listen any further, “as he would done had he come in the name of a man.” Laughing, he asked his ambassadors to “consider how I stand when a woman sends [a declaration] to defy me to war, but I doubt not that God will assist me.”6
WITHIN WEEKS OF England’s entry into the war, Philip left England. Mary accompanied him to Dover, from which he set sail, and at three in the morning of July 6, the king and queen parted company at the quayside. They would never see each other again.
Several days later, an English force of more than 1,000 led by the earl of Pembroke followed the king across the Channel. Many of the officers were former rebels and plotters, including Sir Peter Carew, Lord Robert Dudley, the son of the duke of Northumberland, Sir James Croft, and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. War provided opportunities for service and honor and